Love sometimes means acknowledging you're wrong

Here's a question I'd like everyone to ponder. Why, in parenting, do we so often assume that a child's behavior is something they need to fix and not something we need to fix in ourselves? 

This question seems to be at the root of all sorts of different parenting methods. The more consequence-based methods make an assumption that there is something wrong with the child, and if we are good parents and set appropriate boundaries and consequences, we can get the child to see the error of their ways and make the changes that are needed for a calm and peaceful household. This view says that the adults in a child's life are always right and must be obeyed. If you are talking to a conservative (or often self-described as a Bible believing) Christian, they will add that this need for obedience on the part of the child is dictated by Scripture. 

A more connected parenting approach says that obedience is not the focus of a relationship but the attunement between between and child. It makes no assumptions that one party is always right and one is always wrong, but that both parent and child need to put in an effort at the relationship, always looking for ways they can help the other. Because of an adults more mature emotional system, the bulk of the change and effort will first need to come from them; children, especially hurt children, do not have the capacity to do this. In parenting this way, adults will also realize that they need to change some of the ways they approach their children and the world at large. 

This different has been simmering for quite some time in my head. And when I say a long time, I talking years and not weeks. I can vividly remember being at our small group one evening while we were studying the book of Daniel together. I don't even remember what we were talking about, but one of the members made an observation about how God doesn't parent us as we "good" parents think we should parent our children. It was the first chink in my certainty that I knew the best way to parent. 

Because, really, when you really start to dig into it, God really does not parent us the way some conservative Biblical "authorities" say we should. There is no "do it my way or else" model to follow. Instead we see a God who reaches out to us first, over and over and over again without requiring anything from us but that we turn to him. And even if we don't, He still reaches out. God wants a relationship with us and not just obedience. He knows that when we have a relationship with Him, we will want to do what He asks... love God and love other people. Look at the pharisees. They were really good at obedience, but they really were not so great at loving people. 

I don't understand how somewhere along the line believing in the Bible became code for extreme consequence based discipline. It's not as though we parents are perfect. I know I'm not. Why should we essentially expect perfection from our children? All it does is get in the way of loving our children and helping them to become all they were meant to be. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it becomes more like train up a child in the way his parents think he should go so that when he is old everyone can look at his parents and know what a spectacular job they did. It really becomes more about parental pride than anything. 

So with all this in mind, is it any wonder when I see a child whose current parents are searching for a new family and they dictate that they will only consider "Bible believing Christians" that my hackles rise? It is any wonder that I do ask myself if this family has made a real effort at connecting with their child or have they assumed that all change must come from the child "because the Bible says so"? I grieve for these parents who have been sold a bill of goods that only do harm to them, their family, and their child. I grieve for the child who will have yet one more significant and traumatic loss in their young life. I grieve for the siblings who will also be traumatized because how do you really explain that a parents' love looks for all the world as though it is conditional based on behavior? 

[Do I need to say I know that there are instances where finding a new family for a child is truly the only option after all other options have been tried. It is still tragic. And yes, I am making a whole host of assumptions, but I have also spoken with a lot of parents over the past 15 years and have heard a whole host of stories that I never share with anyone. I have reasons for my assumptions.]

And is it any wonder that it all makes me angry? Anger at the hurt it causes. Anger that Christians are yet again associated with hateful behavior instead of outrageous love. Anger that the Bible can be so misinterpreted to meet the needs of a few. As you can tell, there is a lot roiling around inside of me, and very little of it makes enough coherent sense to be able to write coherently about it. You may be reading more posts along these lines as I slowly process through it all.

But in the end, we are to love our children. Sometimes loving someone means to make room for them as they heal and make sense of their own lives and experiences. Sometimes loving someone means that we do indeed need to admit that we were wrong and be willing to change, even if it means changing our views on things that we, at one time, held strongly. Sometimes you just have to say you don't have it all figured out and that's okay. Love doesn't need all the answers, love means we accept people in the fullness of their humanity and that we meet them there without an agenda... and this goes for children, too.